The Carolina Panthers opted to skip over Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud with the first pick of last year’s NFL Draft and select former Alabama signal caller Bryce Young at No. 1 overall.
Stroud went on to lead the Houston Texans to the playoffs and was named NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year while Young had an inaugural season he likely wants to forget.
After a rookie season in which Young finished with a 59.8 percent completion rate, with 2,877 yards and a 11-10 touchdown to interception ratio, there are plenty of questions on how new head coach Dave Canales plans to fix the Panthers’ young signal caller.
It feels like a tall order for the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers OC, following a season in which Bryce Young went 2-14 as a starter and was sacked a franchise tying 62 times.
No plan to fix Bryce Young,” Canales stated early and confidently on Tuesday during his press conference at the scouting combine.
It’s easy to assume, after a rookie season in which Young finished with a 59.8 percent completion rate, with 2,877 yards and a 11-10 touchdown to interception ratio, that he might need “fixing.”
In a recent interview at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, new Carolina Panthers HC Dave Canales was asked about his plan to fix Bryce Young and the offense.
“I think for me it’s about building an offense that we can be proud of,” Canales explained. “Something that something that is tough, something that is smart, that takes care of the football.
“I really respect Bryce and the road that has taken him to here,” Canales said. “I want to be able to present something to him that’s tangible, that’s specific and says, ‘hey, here’s some things that we can really dive into and improve on your things that you’re doing.’ So, we’ll have a great plan when he comes back to us in a couple of weeks.”
Carolina Panthers HC Dave Canales Makes Shocking Statement About Plan For Bryce Young
On Tuesday, hosting his first combine presser as a head coach, Canales teased a plan; it’s detailed down to the minutiae, based on every snap Young took as a rookie. Canales is familiar with each of those snaps, because he’s spent the past month watching them all. Now, he feels much more versed in the ways of the QB he will be relying on and mentoring.
One thing is clear. Canales doesn’t feel like Young is broken, despite his massive struggles during his rookie season.
“No plan to fix Bryce Young,” Canales stated early and confidently on Tuesday during his press conference at the scouting combine.
“I think that he’s got the tools that we saw a year ago. So, I think, number one, we’re going to have to teach him a new offense. That’s going to be a big part of it. And I think just from a fundamental standpoint, I just see a really accurate player, I see a decisive player,” Canales said about Young.
The Carolina Panthers head coach continued to detail what he’s seen from his new QB and what he envisions for the future.
“He’s now played 16 games. So, he’s got a good variety of exotic looks coverages, blitzes, different things that might have got him, he might not have seen this or that. So, we’ll be able to kind of walk him through; ‘here’s some tells on those things.’ So, some basic year two improvement.”
Beyond what Young does well, Canales feels he has identified the areas that can use, not fixing, but tweaking.
“Number one, we got to create more explosives,” Canales began, “and then of course, we have to minimize damage with exotic pressures and things like that. So, I think just elevating the whole group and really asking Bryce to just do his part.”
The new Carolina Panthers coach has now taken all of this information, and poured it into a manifesto of sorts, examining every aspect of Young’s game, his approach, where he thinks the quarterback can go, and how to get there. He’s hesitant to share the details with the public just yet, until he can present it to Young. The process of creating such a plan though was one he was taught years ago.
When Brian Schottenheimer was offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, and Canales had been promoted to quarterbacks coach, Schottenheimer explained to Canales, if he wanted quarterback Russell Wilson to buy into everything, he wanted to address heading into the season, he’d need a plan of attack.
“He challenged me. He said, you will earn another level of respect with Russell by approaching it from a detailed standpoint. So, we’re really working on that.”
While the coach is keeping the details close to his chest for now, he did break down one area of the Panthers offensive game as a whole that has to be a focus. Canales outlined his “stubborn” approach to the ground game. It drew from the times the Bucs had trouble running the ball last year, and Canales, as offensive coordinator, staying dogged on the approach.
“You have to be able to run the ball to go where we want to go, ultimately, which is number one, to win the division in the NFC South, and then to win deep in the playoffs.”
Clearly the plan is to find success on the ground to set up easier opportunities for Bryce Young and the Carolina Panthers offense catching defenses off guard via play action and other creative concepts. Right now it all sounds good, we will see what happens in September.